San Francisco Shuttle Tours — Local services in San Francisco

After a bumpy unfortunate start, the tour ended up great. I am giving this tour a 4-star rating due to the amazing job our tour guide, Kyra and driver, Charles, did at redeeming what what began as an unfortunate situation. Our small group met at the shuttle by Pier 39 as instructed, after touring Alcatraz. Our shuttle driver, Charles, began driving through the city and after we asked where we were headed, he informed us that we were picking up the tour guide (which was our second question). Half and hour later, after driving across the Golden Gate Bridge without stopping, we ended up in Sausalito not knowing fully what was going on. One of the tourists ended up calling the main number to SF Shuttle Tours and then informed us that we were actually meeting up with another tour group because we were under-booked. According to the driver, he didn't know what was going on, but was only driving us where he was told to. Why SF Shuttle Tours didn't communicate to the driver to inform us of what was going on was beyond us. A short statement would have avoided a lot of our frustration. All we knew was that we were driving for 1/2 hour across SF and the Golden Gate Bridge without a tour guide. It seemed like an expensive bus ride at than point. The tour guide, Kyra, took the time to listen to our complaints and questions after the other group boarded the bus. She was not only gracious but she told us the situation that occurred (that we already knew by that point). After apologizing for our late start, Kyra began our tour. Because we were in Sausalito at that point, she gave us a bonus bus tour of the area informing us about this charming little town on our way back to San Francisco. We had a wonderful extended tour because of this, due to Kyra's diligence and patience. Hats off to her for making lemonade out of what began as a sour situation. Our tour covered everything as promised and more, thanks to our tour guide and driver that got us everywhere safely and efficiently. Recommend this tour for families with teens (a little too rigorous for little ones due to lots of walking up and down hills and steps); great for groups and couples. I do not recommend this tour for people with mobility issues due to walking up/down inclines and up/down steps at a good pace. Recommend wearing tennis shoes and keep a jacket handy as the Bay Area wind can become...

My wife and I had a trip planned to San Francisco and booked this tour. My wife's mother has Stage IV cancer. She took a sudden turn for the worse about 24 hours before our trip. The doctors say she is probably going to die in the next day or two. We, of course, now don't want to leave town. Our airline and hotel were very understanding and accomodating. This organization told me on the phone to send them an email explaining the situation. I recieved a generic prewritten response that said that they will never give a refund with less than 72 hours notice no matter what the circumstances and then proceeded to basically chastise me for not buying their not inexpensive trip insurance. I'm disappointed about the money. But moreso, I find the fact that they have a generic email precomposed for (death in the family/cancelled flight/etc.) that they just blanket email to anyone asking for a refund to be very callous. And the fact they want to capitalize on a dying family member to chastise you the customer and extol the virtues of trip insurance disgusts...

Easily one of the worst travel experiences I've ever had. Honestly if I had the option to give 0 stars I would. Firstly, the tour guide was over 20 minutes late and we were left contacting the company to confirm the tour was still on. Each stop was AT MOST 10 minutes, while you spent the vast majority of time in a bus. Not at all the experience they suggest on their website. They did not drop us off back at our hotel even though we paid for this service and asked the tour guid, the reason provided was "the driver is in a bad mood." That same driver was also the reason we were stuck outside the bus at one stop as he was napping in the back. But to my dismay this wasn't the worst service I'd receive through the company. I than called twice and emailed over 5 times to share my experience and received one email back saying they were reviewing the matter... it's now been over a month. Honestly I'm not one to complain and have done a number of different tours around the world, truthfully this is the worst service I've ever received. Absolutely would...